Band of Sisters
by jwootan02
Summary: After Tamlin confronts Feyre's hovel as the beast, but her sisters, Aelin and Lysandra, refuse to give her up to him, they're all taken to the Spring Court. *ACOTAR if Aelin and Lysandra were Feyre's sisters instead of Nesta and Elain*
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note: So this was created by me sitting around thinking, dang I wish Elain and Nesta were better sisters to Feyre and suddenly I had this mental image of Feyre and Aelin as sisters and I just fell in love. Soooooo HERE YOU GO READ AND REVIEW PLEASE xoxox Jordan**

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I nearly thought my eldest sister would slaughter the beast on sight. It roared into our tiny hovel, knocking the breath out of me as I staggered back, my sisters stepping in front of me. Gathering myself, I rose to their side. We would challenge the beast, my sisters and I, whether death awaited us or not.

Our father, however, nearly cried out in fear at our backs. He was already seated, but fell to the floor, crawling to the wall behind him.

"YOU HAVE KILLED ONE OF MY MEN. I MUST TAKE A LIFE FOR A LIFE."

"To hell you will," Lysandra spat at the feral, unnatural animal that _spoke_ to us.

But it was Aelin who stepped up, "No, I've got this. Watch out for Feyre, Lys." My blondest sister pulled her prized possessions from where they rested in leather sheaths on each of her hips. The twin blades gleamed in her palms - and they should, seeing as how she just finished cleaning them moments ago after our return from our petty shopping in the village. She gripped them with the expertise gifted by a lifetime of training in any form of hand to hand combat as she prowled toward the beast.

It didn't seem to fear her, but it obviously didn't know what it was in for.

With a roar, the beast lunged and my sister dove beneath him, already upright with a knife ready to plunge into its back before it was even aware of what happened. I was ready for my triumphant smile, for the jokes we'd tell of this event as we cooked the monster before us. But then a wave of what I could only call sheer power flew from him, knocking us all back. Lysandra nearly fell into me as we tried to keep from busting our asses on the bare floors of the hovel.

Even Aelin stumbled, her balance skewed, but she did not fall. And the twitch in her upper lip made me almost feel sorry for the beast.

"I do not want to have to kill you," the magical beast said, lowering its voice as if it were trying to calm us. Apparently it noticed that intimidation wasn't really working for him. "I need only to bring the killer of my friend and soldier back with me."

"Over the wall?" Lysandra asked.

Before the beast opened his mouth again Aelin scoffed, "Yeah, right, like we're just gonna let you take one of us into the world of the Fae."

"You'll have to kill us all, first," Lysandra added.

"Um, girls -" our father tried, but I shot him a look over my shoulder. _Now is not the time._

"Fine," the beast said, "then I'll just have to take you all."

* * *

The first thing I noted when I awoke was that I hadn't known I was sleeping.

The second thing I noticed was the lavish crown molding in the corners of whatever room I was now in. The blankets wrapped around me were plush, white, and clean. And I was the only occupant in the entire, massive bed.

Panic struck me.

Where were my sisters?

I threw the covers aside, ignoring the light headed sensation that threatened to stop me as I leaped out of the bed, frantically looking for a door. The room was generically decorated, there was some bobble or piece of art one nearly every inch of every wall. They passed through my sight in a blur as I twisted until I saw the door on the other end of the bedroom.

The golden knob gave easily on my touch and I had the good sense enough to hesitate before flinging the door open and screaming my sisters' names. I'd instantly remembered the beast and his threat to kill us, then… then saying he'd take us all.

But that was good, I reminded myself. That meant that they were here with me somewhere. I just had to find them. And knowing Aelin and Lysandra, they were already looking for me. In fact, I was surprised I wasn't hearing some sort of scuffle or sweet talking going on through the halls. Neither of my sisters were… subtle.

I lined up an eye with the slit of hallway I revealed with the barely open door. The hallway was lit by something I could not see - magic, no doubt. It was just as ornate as the inside of my room, money lined every inch of this place and I was starting to wonder exactly what kind of beast had kidnapped us. Turning back to my room, I wished I had my bow with me. But I'd make do. Pacing through the room, I laid hands on every surface I could find searching for any sort of instrument that could give me a desperate edge I would need against such a creature. Now, Aelin, she could take bath tissue and find a way to kill the thing. Give Lysandra two minutes and she'd convince him to let us go. I, on the other hand, had no such abilities. My strengths were all silent, and in this situation, useless.

I finally found a candlestick holder in a drawer of an armoire and decided it would have to do.

Creeping out into the hallway, my heart was flying in my chest, beating faster than it had during any kill I'd ever made - including the wolf I'd shot yesterday. The wolf I'd had a feeling wasn't completely natural. And that's exactly why I had to find my sisters. I was the reason they were here in the first place. But after replaying the pride in their eyes at my kill, I wasn't so sorry.

Each step I made felt like an avalanche of noise, despite the soft sounds from the worn wood beneath my bare toes. I'd been changed into a simple tunic and pants. I didn't want to think about who might have done that, knowing that the beast that visited my hovel definitely didn't have the thumbs for such a task.

I nearly peed my pants when I slammed into another person and though I tried to remain somewhat poised, I couldn't help falling completely to the ground at the feet of the force.

"Oh, dear," the woman's voice said. "I was just coming back to get you ready for supper."

I dared look up, my brow riddled with confusion. "What?"

"The High Lord wants you all to have dinner with him," she merely replied. "Oh, I'm so sorry. My name is Alis. Come now, let's get you cleaned up."

She yanked me up by my arm and shuffled me back through the door I'd just came through before I could even think of a reply. What kind of kidnapping was this?

It took her minutes to get me ready, mostly because I refused any delicate hairdo she offered and nearly spat on her when she wanted to put me in a dress. So she brushed through my hair and found a pair of shoes for me to wear before walking me down the hallway to a set of stairs that led down to a great hall, two large wooden doors with intricate designs at its head. We walked along the marble tile of the practically royal room just as I realized what she'd said to me.

 _The High Lord._

Not only was I in Prythian, over the wall in fae territory, but I was in the home of one of their leaders. The ruler of the country just north of my home on the mortal side of the continent.

I let myself take one swift gulp before bottling the rest of my fears as I entered a great archway into a fine dining room, only to see my sisters already sitting at the great oak table with two masked men with long faces and long frowns.

I couldn't help the sputter of a laugh that I had tried to hold between my tight pressed lips. Lysandra wore a dress. Its spring green skirts billowed around her seat, fabric flowing everywhere. Fabric that was surely missing from the chest of the gown. And then Aelin, to my surprise, also wore a dress, though its red was bright as her temper and its fabric was clinging to her body, thin as her patience. The noise of my laughter brought the attention of everyone in the room directly toward me and the piercing gaze of the two fae males shut me right up.

"Ah," the male at the head of the table spoke first. His mask was cartoonish and golden like his long hair that cascaded down his chest. "So you've decided to join us."

"Decide is an interesting word to use under these conditions," Aelin said, turning a vicious smile to the blonde male.

The other male remained quiet, looking as if he would rather be anywhere than here. He also had long hair, though his was a brilliant red and his mask was the face of a fox. Fitting, it seemed.

"Now, I would consider it a mercy that your lives have been spared at all," the blonde fae started, but the red-haired fae cleared his throat to interrupt him.

I could see the gears turning in Lysandra's eyes.

"My name is Tamlin," the blonde fae said, "and I am High Lord of the Spring Court. This is my home and you are my guests."

"You mean prisoners?" I asked, still standing in the archway.

"You're repaying me the life of my friend, and seeing as how he was immortal, I would think three human lives still don't quite make an even trade. Now sit."

Aelin stood. "You don't tell us what to do. You also don't kidnap people and call them guests unless you're entirely insane, but by all means, please, let us live in your home. Let us know where the heart of your country is. Let us have access to your friends and citizens. Let us murderers murder some more!"

I rolled my eyes, stifling a laugh.

"I have an idea," Aelin continued, "let's start a betting pool on how long it takes me to find which bed in this house is the one you lay your head on to sleep at night."

"By the Cauldron," the red-haired fae mumbled. Lysandra gave him a pleasant, mindless smile from where she sat across the table from him.

Apparently, Tamlin thought the best way to deal with Aelin was to ignore her. Little did he know what fire that would ignite.

"This is Lucien, my right hand. He can help you with anything you need, just as Alis can. She'll be tending to you all for the duration of your stay," he said, never even giving Aelin a speck of attention. He turned his masked face to me. "Please, sit, eat with us."

So I did, only after seeing Aelin take her seat once more without throwing down with the fae over his ignorance of her. But I knew what the fae, Tamlin, did not.

Aelin was more than a loud mouth, more than rash actions and big talk. She was patient, intelligent, and relentless. Lysandra was scheming, and once she had a plan, she would become whatever you needed her to be - whatever your wildest dreams envisioned - then she'd rip it all out from under you.

And I…

Well, I was more than just the little sister and the Spring Court was about to find out fast.


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Note: Super short chapter being posted right before I have to go into work. I just couldn't wait to write more before posting because this story is just. so. fun.**

 **ENJOY! Read and review! Xoxo Jordan**

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For whatever reason, we were actually left to our own devices in the sprawling luxury estate even after my eldest sister's threats against the High Lord. We wandered through the trees, sunlight dancing across their leaves creating every color I'd ever seen and more. To paint it would drive me to madness.

Lys had linked arms with me as we meandered behind Aelin's lead.

"Do you," she whispered to me, "feel different on this side of the wall?"

I jerked my head to hers. "No, not really. Do you?"

And despite our quiet, Aelin turned her head back to us. Her eyes met our middle sister's before darting to mine and back to Lysandra's. I knew that look.

Aelin felt different here, too.

There was a crack of a branch yards ahead of us. We stilled. I tensed my grip on Lysandra and Aelin crouched. We were three huntresses in a garden forest of the fae, and we would not be afraid of crushed leaves.

But then a beast made of bones stepped into view in a clearing ahead. It was taller than us all and had no lips or even a nose. Its black eyes were less like eyeballs and more like endless holes deep in its face. And it turned those eyes on us.

"Well, well," it said, "what do we have here?" Its voice was slippery and sinister.

Aelin stood her ground ahead of us. "What are _you_?" she demanded.

"I asked you first," the creature said, its face curving as if… as if it were smiling.

"We are mortals," Lysandra said. "Nothing more, nothing less."

The bone creature turned toward us, but made no move in our direction. "You're wrong. You three are more than mere mortals."

"What do you mean?" I asked, forcing my voice to be as strong as my sisters'.

"You don't know of your heritage? Interesting," it said, then turned to leave its ivory feet crushing more leaves with a slurping, wet crunch.

"You didn't answer my question," Aelin called across the field between us.

The creature paused. "I am the Suriel. I am the truth teller, the answer giver, to those I find worthy, that is." He turned at the neck, his empty gaze meeting mine, threatening my sanity as if it could suck the goodness right out of me. "Do you want to know a truth, youngest half-breed?"

 _Half breed?_

I set the thought aside, instead thinking of getting my sisters out of this place. "How do we escape the Spring Court and its High Lord?"

That startling, lipless smile crept back on its bone-face. "You'd all have to find your mates."

Something about the word set unease spilling into my gut, though I couldn't help but feel the word held different meaning on this side of the wall.

Aelin wasn't worried about the semantics. "And where are they?"

The Suriel didn't look at her. "I will only answer to your youngest sister."

My eyes met his, "Where can we find our mates?"

"There is a mountain, one day of travel from here. Defeat Amarantha and you will find each of your mates."

"Amarantha?" I asked.

"She must be won carefully, with wits. Play her game," he replied edging away from us, ready to sink back into the shade of the far away trees.

"What do we do once we've killed her?"

The Suriel was already leaving and I'd given up on hearing a reply to my last question when at last I heard its screech in the distance. "Stay with the High Lord."

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 **Stay tuned for Feyre, Lysandra, and Aelin UNDER THE MOUNTAIN - also what the dump is gonna happen with Tamlin? Read on, good fangirls & fanboys... **


	3. Chapter 3

We decided to head out immediately with the idea that if we were to return to the High Lord of the Spring Court, he would find a way to keep us there with magic or perhaps even the strength of his beast form that even Aelin might not be able to best.

So we trekked.

Lysandra had noticed which direction the Suriel had looked when he'd told us of our day of travel, so we thought that was our best lead. Aelin somehow had found her knives while Alis was dressing her and currently had them strapped to her trousers. I silently thanked the Cauldron my sisters were no longer in dresses.

When we'd stopped for a quick bite after I'd found some familiar berries Lysandra said, "I don't think I want a mate."

"Me either," I said immediately.

Aelin started to laugh and we joined right in. I had to keep raising a hand to wave them quieter. We'd been walking wordlessly for hours now. The grounds had slowly become less of a garden and more of a forest, so we felt secure that we were putting plenty of distance between ourselves and Tamlin.

"What if the High Lord of the Spring Court was Aelin's mate?" Lys asked. She'd tried to make it through the whole sentence without laughing, but had failed, grabbing her stomach in a fit of giggles.

"Well, at least then she wouldn't have to look for his bed for very long," I said.

Aelin lunged for me and I screamed when she tackled me to the grass.

But I'd been too loud. We all stopped, letting the silence encompass us once more before gathering what food we had left in our pockets and continuing our walk.

Though we would run for a few miles, to put some distance between us and the place we might have been heard.

Nightfall was coming when we finally dared to speak again, choosing to discuss our plan of attack on Amarantha instead of talk about mates.

The air around us grew cold and heavy as darkness fell. We all knew well enough not to be out in unfamiliar woods at night, but we'd all chosen irrationally, ready to escape, ready for the adrenaline the unknown brought with it. Stepping through a small pass between two hills, we finally saw the sliver of a cave ahead. It was hardly a mountain.

We all looked to one another's eyes before we entered the cave.

The only sounds in the darkness were our shallow breaths and the sound of our boots on the stone beneath us. We kept to a frigid wall, one hand on its icy surface and another on the shoulder of the sister ahead. Aelin led us, her empty hand held a dagger. We hadn't discussed whether we were attempting to make camp here or if it might actually lead us to Amarantha, but the sweet smell of cold that surrounded us felt unnatural. If we weren't on our way to meet this woman, then we were in for some other magical challenge in this world of fae. I idly wondered if the High Lord of the Spring Court would be able to track us to here.

"Camp?" Aelin whispered.

I nodded without remembering she couldn't see me.

"Sure," Lys said.

We shuffled around in the dark, feeling for where the others were, before I heard the familiar shuffling of sticks. After a handful of tries at forcing their friction with no luck of a flame I could hear Aelin's frustrated grunts growing impatient at the most likely soggy twigs. I gave her a soft hush, trying to remind her that we didn't know if we were alone, but she ignored me. Her grunts grew into growls until her gutteral noises filled the cavern around us. Lysandra and I were reaching for her, trying to tell her to quiet down, when she let out what I could only call a roar.

Then there was fire.

Fire spilled from her hands. Her twigs held a flame ten times taller than it should have been able to. But before we could even register what Aelin had just done, a leathery beast had grabbed Lysandra by the arm. She froze, turning slowly to look into the eyes of the gray beast with pointed spindly fingers. It smiled at her, showing off gleaming, silver fangs.

"Hello," it said, its voice like gravel. And it tried to speak again, but it was cut off by the same surprise that webbed through me. Lysandra's face had been frozen in panic and disgust as she stared at the bat-like creature, but where her face once was, a new face was slowly melding onto her flesh. Her body bowed and broke beneath the beast's touch.

Until Lysandra was a mirror image of the hideous, terrifying creature.

It took a step back, moving away from my sisters. "Oh I've got to take you all to Amarantha," it said, the scratch of its voice seeping into my bones.

"Where is she?" Aelin asked, and then I noticed that she'd never let go of the fire in her palm. She hid it behind her back like she'd done with candy when we were children, Lysandra and I always begging for her last piece.

"Deeper in the mountain," it replied. "Don't worry, I'll get you all there in no time." It dropped that oozing smile on us once more.

"Who are you to her?" Aelin asked. Lysandra was still frozen, staring at the creature. I didn't know if she knew what she'd done - what she looked like - but she seemed just as freaked out about it as I was.

"I am the Attor," the creature offered. "I am a servant of Amarantha. I am her torturer, and I can't wait to get my claws on each of you…"

It didn't have the time to reach out a claw in my direction before Aelin threw the fire from her hands onto the beast. She let out a guttural war cry and the fire grew, engulfing every inch of its leathery hide. An animal screech poured from its monster lips as Aelin didn't wait for the fire to finish the job. She retrieved her hidden blades, sinking them into the gray, muted flesh entirely unafraid of her own skin touching the flames.

We stood there together, watching by the light of the twig fire until the Attor stopped screaming. We watched as Aelin fed the fire until all that was left were his bones, covered in the ash of his own corpse.

I looked to my sisters. One wielding fire as if it were the most natural thing in the world for her to do. And the other… in the skin of the Attor.

Lysandra stared at us and I was sure my face was pure horror.

"I have a plan," she said, and her voice was like crushing glass, so much like the Attor's.


End file.
